20 in 2020 – Part I

October 24 to November 28, 2020

Opening Reception and Paul Horn – Jeff Wheeler curated Camp Lucky 2 Quantum Entangled Blue Yard Sale: Saturday, October 24^th, Noon to 6:00 pm

Deborah Colton Gallery is pleased to present 20 in 2020 – Part I, a group exhibition featuring paintings, drawings, mixed media, photography, sculpture and video that reflect on highlights of Colton’s twenty years in Houston serving the community with exhibitions from around the world and supporting our Houston art history. Part I reflects on the first decade, starting in 2000. All works are available for acquisition and can be viewed our website and Viewing Room after the exhibition opens. There will be an Open House and a Paul Horn – Jeff Wheeler curated event and yard sale in the back gardens from noon to 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 24^th. Limited admission and face masks are required. The Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10:30 am to 5:30 pm and private appointments can also be arranged when requested.

Join Deborah Colton in celebrating twenty years since the first Houston exhibition that she curated in October 2000, just a few months after she and her family moved back to Houston from Asia! The first exhibition, Thai Expressions in the City, Colton had curated while still living in Bangkok and included many major works by sixteen top artists in Thailand at the grand Two Allen Center in conjunction with the Asia Society. These first Houston exhibitions in Two Allen Center supported the Asia Society’s vision of creating their new building and exhibition space, and their Asia Society logos and materials where placed throughout the exhibition space so thousands of people who walked through a day and came to the Asia Society’s exhibition receptions there could start to envision what a Asian Art Museum would be like! Colton sponsored major contemporary Asian art exhibitions, from Thailand in 2000, China in October 2001 and Japan in October of 2003, all in conjunction with the Asia Society and The Consulate Offices of each of their counties. The exhibition from Japan also was in conjunction with the Asian Cultural Exchange of Japan and excerpts from this exhibition also toured to Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Select works from these exhibitions and artists will be on view at the gallery!

During this same time in the early millennium, Colton was planning to open a private gallery but wanted to take her time to access what Houston had already in terms of the arts. She also wanted a unique type of gallery space. Due to Colton’s support of a Swiss Italian Artist, Pierre Poretti while she lived in Bangkok, she was connected Pierre’s dear friend Edo Bertoglio, who was the Film Director of “Downtown 81,” which featured Jean Michel Basquiat. Edo invited Colton to the United States debut of the film in NYC, where the accompanying exhibition was debuted at Jeffery Dietch’s gallery. For FotoFest of 2002, Colton brought “Downtown 81” to the Houston Angelika Film Center and the accompanying exhibition to a funky art space restaurant in Montrose, and then to Dallas at the Angelika Film Center also. This 2002 exhibition that Colton organized brought in many key curators and contemporary art collectors, which then started the momentum for Colton to open a permanent space starting in 2003 for Deborah Colton Gallery at 2500 Summer Street in the Washington quarter as a cool warehouse gallery with a downtown skyline view. This area was then a very dilapidated and neglected part of town then. Colton’s exhibitions and openings help revitalize the area where she helped establish the area as a First Ward Arts Districts and organize the first grand city wide exhibition at Winter Street after John Deal bought and restored the building in 2005.

The famous Paul Horn curated Camp Lucky – Summer of Carnage in September of 2004, which included interactive performances by the Art Guys and I Love You Baby and included artists like Bill Davenport, Sharon Engelstein, Mark Flood, Francesca Fuchs, Rachel Hecker and Arron Parazette attracted over 1,200 people that night with cars going all the way to Washington Avenue. Camp Lucky 2 Quantum Entangled Blue, curated by Paul Horn and Jeffrey Wheeler will include works by Mark Flood, Jack Massing, Art Guys, Banksy, Daniel Johnston, Thedra Cullar-Ledford, Bill Davenport, Paul Horn, Jeffry Wheeler and others will be great fun also! Due to Covid, though, masks and a limit on guests at one time is required.

Earlier shows brought video and futuristic Sci-Artists like Suzanne Anker and Michael Rees to Houston in 2004, at a time when the city was not showing much video or digital interactive works yet, like in the Deborah Colton Gallery shows Integrating Digital Consciousness and Touch & Temperature: Art in the Cybernetic Totalism that included pioneers in digital art like Manfred Mohr from Germany and Yael Kanarek and Matthew Barney from New York. Lowell Boyers’ work was introduced at Deborah Colton Gallery in Touch & Temperature also and he has been with the gallery since then. In 2005, Deborah Colton Gallery debuted in Houston “The Godfather of American avant-garde cinema,” Jonas Mekas, in the solo exhibition Film Framed, and at the same time started the movement to revere Houston art history through representing the Estate of Suzanne Paul. In 2005 also, Deborah Colton Gallery debuted the Warhol Factory’s Ultra Violet to Houston in the New Cartoon exhibition and then gave Ultra Violet a solo exhibition in 2006. September of 2006, Deborah Colton Gallery organized and sponsored the historical WORD exhibition which was a fusion of the original conceptual and fluxus artists, including Jenny Holzer, Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Ed Ruscha, Mickey Smith, Lawrence Weiner, Ben Vautier, The Art Guys and 19 others. As part of this exhibition, Colton sponsored the public space installation of Yoko Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE billboard that was displayed on I-45 South going into downtown, which made the statement worldwide that not all of Texas was for war. Shortly thereafter, Colton helped organized Michael Somoroff’s Illuminations sculpture to be placed on the Rothko Chapel grounds for several months, to further support international peace. Deborah Colton Gallery was the only USA gallery to exhibit at the first Abu Dhabi Art Fair, this message of promoting international peace through Somoroff’s work and other prevailed in 2007, and this mission still continues.

By 2007, China was expanding rapidly and was in the forefront of international contemporary art. Deborah Colton Gallery debuted exhibitions and performances from Chinese internationally acclaimed artists like Han Bing, the Gao Brothers, XU Yong & YU Na and had major shows in the heat of the Chinese contemporary art movement like China Under Construction. When the Middle East contemporary art scene broke open, Deborah Colton Gallery brought exhibitions from this region to Houston, like Qatar Narratives in 2008 and many exhibitions of cutting-edge work from the Middle East and Arab world thereafter. Angelbert Metoyer was first shown at Deborah Colton Gallery during the Qatar Narratives exhibition since he was selected as the American Artist to reflect on the Qatari culture. Since then Angelbert has had several solo exhibitions at Deborah Colton Gallery.

Qatar Narratives marked the last exhibition that Deborah Colton Gallery had at 2500 Summer Street. Molly Gochman’s Release exhibition partially transitioned 2445 North Boulevard from her artist studio/exhibition space to Deborah Colton Gallery. The 2008 exhibition, Time for Change, curated by Catherine D. Anspon marked the full conversion of the gallery move, in addition to being a thoughtful group exhibition around the time of an important election year.

Exhibiting early feminist artists like Mary Beth Edelson and then provocative work that addresses social issues like Jay Rusovich and Frank Rodick has been part of the gallery programming starting in this first decade of the gallery’s history. Deborah Colton Gallery founded OUTPOST NYC – DCG during this time also, which hosted exhibitions at non- profit spaces at the Emily Harvey Foundation, the MAC in Dallas and NADA during Miami Basel. Such exhibitions included solo exhibitions of Molly Gochman, Mary Beth Edelson, Frank Rodick, Suzanne Anker, Marianne Vitale, Jonas Mekas and Christian Tomaszewski.

Respecting our past, being aware of our current environment, and looking far beyond into the future has always been part of the vision of Deborah Colton Gallery. The mission statement has been the same since our first exhibitions. Deborah Colton Gallery is founded on being an innovative showcase for ongoing presentation and promotion of strong historical and visionary contemporary artists world-wide, whose diverse practices include painting, works on paper, sculpture, video, photography, performance and conceptual future media and public space installations. The gallery aspires to provide a forum through connecting Texas, national and international artists to make positive change.

There will be many magazines and memorabilia available to take from this exhibition. Also specially reduced prices to celebrate the first decade of our shows in Houston!